A to Z: David Bowie Says Writing For “Ziggy Stardust” Was Easier Than Writing For HimselfMarch 31, 2015 12:40 PM

by Alisha Jackson

Creating and performing under an alter ego can be risky. People tend to scrutinize the formation of an alternate identity, ruling it tacky and unauthentic.

But if you listen to why David Bowie created Ziggy Stardust, his reasons behind it couldn’t be more genuine.

“Writing a song for me never rang true. I had no problem writing something for Iggy Pop, or working with Lou Reed, or writing for Mott The Hoople. I can get into their mood and what they want to do, but I find it extremely hard to write for me.

So I found it quite easy to write for the artists that I would create. I did find it much easier, having created ‘Ziggy’, to then write for him, even though it was me doing it.”

David Bowie performs his final concert as Ziggy Stardust at the Hammersmith Odeon, London.The concert later became known as the Retirement Gig. (Photo by Express/Express/Getty Images)

While some Ziggy Stardust fans probably wish he were still touring and making albums with The Spiders From Mars, Bowie knew that his fictional superstar had to be laid to rest at some point.

When the interviewer in the video above asked Bowie if there was a point where people didn’t take his music seriously (because of “Ziggy”), he answered with:

“I think I moved out of Ziggy fast enough, so as not to be caught by that one, because most rock characters that one can create, only have a short lifespan. They are one-shots. They are cartoony. And the Ziggy thing was worth about one or two albums. I couldn’t really write anything else around him or the world that I sort of wanted to put together for him.”

David Bowie arguably stayed truer to his fictitious character “Ziggy”, than some artists do to themselves.

Back in the late sixties and early seventies, Thwing resident John Hutchinson was David Bowie’s “right-hand man” when it came to playing guitar. In 1973, John toured the USA, Japan, and the UK alongside David and The Spiders from Mars, memories of which he has distilled into a book entitled “Bowie & Hutch”. Here, in an exclusive interview with “Pulse” author Steve Rudd, John reminisces about his first meeting with Bowie, his “day job” in the oil and gas industry, and his “newest” band, the aptly-named Sultans of Thwing…

On April 12, 1975, David Bowie retired from music for the second time.

As written in a September 1976 Playboy interview conducted by Cameron Crowe, Bowie said, “I’ve rocked my roll. It’s a boring dead end. There will be no more rock ‘n’ roll records or tours from me. The last thing I want to be is some useless f—ing rock singer.”

Bowie’s capriciousness wasn’t unprecedented; in fact, he had announced his retirement already once before, in July 1973, at the height of Ziggy Stardust mania. In that case, he played up the confusion surrounding his announcement — was he really leaving the road forever, or was he just putting his Ziggy Stardust persona out to pasture? — in order to drum up publicity and create mystery...

David Bowie's mug shot following his arrest on March 21, 1976 in Rochester, N.Y. A judge agreed to delay his arraignmentuntil March 25 to allow him to perform at the Springfield Civic Center.

By Ray Kellyon May 01, 2015 at 2:42 PM

Forgotten concerts: David Bowie rocks Springfield Civic Center hours after his March 21, 1976 arrest in New York

March 21, 1976 did not start off as a particularly great day for David Bowie.

Around 3 a.m., four Rochester, New York, police detectives and a state police officer searched Bowie's three-room suite at the Americana Rochester Hotel, where they found a little more than six ounces of marijuana. Bowie and pal Iggy Pop, were taken to the Monroe County Jail, booked on fifth-degree criminal possession of marijuana, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, and released at about 7 a.m. on $2,000 bond.

Bowie was to be arraigned the next day, but his lawyer successfully argued for a delay until March 25, noting Bowie would face stiff penalties if he missed the gig at the Springfield Civic Center.

So, a little more than 12 hours after leaving the Monroe County Jail, Bowie was performing before 6,752 fans in the City of Homes.

The concert began with a showing of the 1928 surrealist film "Un Chien Andqalou" ("Mad Dog") before the music got underway.

Over the course of the next 90 minutes, Bowie, dressed as a dapper man-about-town, treated fans to hits like "Fame," "Changes" and "Life On Mars."

No mention was made of the arrest – and a grand jury later chose not to indict Bowie or Pop on drug charges.

An intro to our upgraded Bowie special, plus news of another mag from the Uncut stable...

Allan Jones, founding editor of Uncut, tells a great story about his first meeting with David Bowie, the subject of our latest updated Ultimate Music Guide: Deluxe Remastered Edition. It is September 1977, and Jones is in the penthouse suite at the Dorchester Hotel on London’s Park Lane; sat in an anteroom, awaiting his summons.

After a while, Jones is led into the main suite, which appears empty. “I look around and notice the windows to the balcony are open,” he recalls. “Lace curtains are billowing into the room, sunlight streaming through them. Then, surrounded by a glowing halo of light that can only be described as celestial, David Bowie steps into the room from the balcony and stands there. I’m dazzled, rooted to the spot, slack-jawed.”

“Allan,” says Bowie, “so very pleased to meet you at last. Brian’s told me so much about you.” That’s Brian Eno, who Jones has interviewed several times. Now, though, the young journalist has moved into a different world entirely – bowled over, he notes, by “The D-Day of charm offensives”...